We construct pairs of conformally equivalent isospectral Riemannian metrics $ϕ_1 g$ and $ϕ_2 g$ on spheres $S^n$ and balls $B^{n+1}$ for certain dimensions $n$, the smallest of which is $n=7$, and on certain compact simple Lie groups. In the case of Lie groups, the metric $g$ is left-invariant. In the case of spheres and balls, the metric $g$ is not the standard metric but may be chosen arbitrarily close to the standard one. For the same manifolds $(M,g)$ we also show that the functions $ϕ_1$ and $ϕ_2$ are isospectral potentials for the Schrödinger operator $\hbar^2Δ+ϕ$. To our knowledge, these are the first examples of isospectral potentials and of isospectral conformally equivalent metrics on simply connected closed manifolds.
The intertwining operator constructed in [Sz1,Sz2] does not appear in the right form. It is established there by using only the anticommutators. The correct operator must involve all endomorphisms, which are unified by the Z-Fourier transform. Although some of the correct elements of the previous constructions are kept, this idea is established by a new technique which yields the various isospectrality theorems stated in the papers on a much larger scale. The new results include new isospectrality examples living on sphere$X$ball- and sphere$X$sphere-type manifolds. Among them, there are such …
The first isospectral pairs of metrics are constructed on balls and spheres. This long standing problem, concerning the existence of such pairs, has been solved by a new method called "Anticommutator Technique." Among the wide range of such pairs, the most striking examples are provided on (4k-1)-dimensional spheres, where k > 2. One of these metrics is homogeneous (since it is the metric on the geodesic sphere of a 2-point homogeneous space), while the other is locally inhomogeneous. These examples demonstrate the surprising fact that no information about the isometries is encoded in the spec…
We prove the existence of multiparameter isospectral deformations of metrics on SO(n) $(n = 9$ and $n\geq 11)$, SU(n) $(n\geq 8)$, and $Sp(n)$ $(n\geq 4)$. For these examples, we follow a metric construction developed by Schueth who had given one-parameter families of isospectral metrics on orthogonal and unitary groups. Our multiparameter families are obtained by a new proof of nontriviality establishing a generic condition for nonisometry of metrics arising from the construction. We also show the existence of non-congruent pairs of isospectral potentials and nonisometric pairs of isospectral…
We construct isospectral pairs of Riemannian metrics on S^5 and on B^6, thus lowering by three the dimension of spheres and balls on which such metrics have been constructed previously (S^{n\ge 8} and B^{n\ge 9}). We also construct continuous families of isospectral Riemannian metrics on S^7 and on B^8. In each of these examples, the metrics can be chosen equal to the standard metric outside certain subsets of arbitrarily small volume.
We construct non-trivial continuous isospectral deformations of Riemannian metrics on the ball and on the sphere in $\R^n$ for every $n\geq 9$. The metrics on the sphere can be chosen arbitrarily close to the round metric; in particular, they can be chosen to be positively curved. The metrics on the ball are both Dirichlet and Neumann isospectral and can be chosen arbitrarily close to the flat metric.
This article concludes the comprehensive study started in [Sz5], where the first non-trivial isospectral pairs of metrics are constructed on balls and spheres. These investigations incorporate 4 different cases since these balls and spheres are considered both on 2-step nilpotent Lie groups and on their solvable extensions. In [Sz5] the considerations are completely concluded in the ball-case and in the nilpotent-case. The other cases were mostly outlined. In this paper the isospectrality theorems are completely established on spheres. Also the important details required about the solvable ext…
In this paper we prove that a flat free-boundary minimal $n$-disk, $n\geq3$, in the unit Euclidean ball $B^{n+1}$ is the unique compact free boundary minimal hypersurface in the unit Euclidean ball which the squared norm of the second fundamental form is less than either $\frac{n^2}{4}$ or $\frac{(n-2)^2}{4|x|^2}$. Moreover, we prove analogous results for compact free boundary minimal hypersurfaces in annular domains with a conformally Euclidean metric.
We prove that the area of a free boundary minimal surface $Σ^2 \subset B^n$, where $B^n$ is a geodesic ball contained in a round hemisphere $\mathbb{S}^n_+$, is at least as big as that of a geodesic disk with the same radius as $B^n$; equality is attained only if $Σ$ coincides with such a disk. More generally, we prove analogous results for a class of conformally euclidean ambient spaces. This follows work of Brendle and Fraser-Schoen in the euclidean setting.
Motivated by considerations of euclidean quantum gravity, we investigate a central question of spectral geometry, namely the question of reconstructability of compact Riemannian manifolds from the spectra of their Laplace operators. To this end, we study analytic paths of metrics that induce isospectral Laplace-Beltrami operators over oriented compact surfaces without boundary. Applying perturbation theory, we show that sets of conformally equivalent metrics on such surfaces contain no nontrivial convex subsets. This indicates that cases where the manifolds cannot be reconstructed from their s…
In this work, we consider $M=(\mathbb{B}^3_r,\bar{g})$ as the Euclidean three-ball with radius $r$ equipped with the metric $\bar{g}=e^{2h}\left\langle , \right\rangle$ conformal to the Euclidean metric. We show that if a free boundary CMC surface $Σ$ in $M$ satisfies a pinching condition on the length of the traceless second fundamental tensor which involves the support function of $Σ$, the positional conformal vector field $\vec{x}$ and its potential function $σ,$ then either $Σ$ is a disk or $Σ$ is an annulus rotationally symmetric. In a particular case, we construct an example of minimal s…
Given a closed subset $\La$ of the open unit ball $B_1\subset \real^n$, $n \geq 3$, we will consider a complete Riemannian metric $g$ on $\bar{B_1} \setminus \La$ of constant scalar curvature equal to $n(n-1)$ and conformally related to the Euclidean metric. In this paper we prove that every closed Euclidean ball $\bar{B} \subset B_1\setminus \La$ is convex with respect to the metric $g$, assuming the mean curvature of the boundary $\partial B_1$ is nonnegative with respect to the inward normal.
We study the asymptotic behavior for singular solutions to a critical fourth order system generalizing the constant $Q$-curvature equation. Our main result extends to the case of strongly coupled systems, the celebrated asymptotic classification due to [L. A. Caffarelli, B. Gidas and J. Spruck, Comm. Pure Appl. Math. (1989)] and [N. Korevaar, R. Mazzeo, F. Pacard and R. Schoen, Invent. Math., (1999)]. On the technical level, we use an involved spectral analysis to study the Jacobi fields' growth properties in the kernel of the linearization of our system around a blow-up limit solution. Beside…
An important tool in the study of conformal geometry, and the AdS/CFT correspondence in physics, is the Fefferman-Graham expansion of conformally compact Einstein metrics. We show that conformally compact metrics satisfying a generalization of the Einstein equation, Poincare-Lovelock metrics, also have Fefferman-Graham expansions. Moreover we show that conformal classes of metrics that are near that of the round metric on the n-sphere have fillings into the ball satisfying the Lovelock equation, extending the existence result of Graham-Lee for Einstein metrics.
The main goal in this paper is to point out that quantity $||\nabla R||^2(p)$ on a harmonic space can not be determined by the spectra of local geodesic spheres or balls, therefore the main results of [AM-S] (quoted in the title) are wrong. My strong interest in the above theorem is motivated by the fact that it contradicts some of my isospectrality examples constructed on geodesic spheres and balls of certain harmonic manifolds. The authors overlooked that the Lichnerowicz identity is not determined by the given spectral data, and so is the final crucial equation obtained by eliminating with …
In this paper we show that for a Berger metric $\hat{g}$ on $S^3$, the non-positively curved conformally compact Einstein metric on the $4$-ball $B_1(0)$ with $(S^3, [\hat{g}])$ as its conformal infinity is unique up to isometries and it is the metric constructed by Pedersen \cite{Pedersen}. In particular, since in \cite{LiQingShi}, we proved that if the Yamabe constant of the conformal infinity $Y(S^3, [\hat{g}])$ is close to that of the round sphere then any conformally compact Einstein manifold filled in must be negatively curved and simply connected, therefore if $\hat{g}$ is a Berger metr…
In this paper we show rigidity results for super-solutions to fully nonlinear elliptic conformally invariant equations on subdomains of the standard $n$-sphere $\mathbb S^n$ under suitable conditions along the boundary. We emphasize that our results do not assume concavity assumption on the fully nonlinear equations we will work with. This proves rigidity for compact connected locally conformally flat manifolds $(M,g)$ with boundary such that the eigenvalues of the Schouten tensor satisfy a fully nonlinear elliptic inequality and whose boundary is isometric to a geodesic sphere $\partial D(r)$…
Let $M$ be a Riemannian 3-manifold of nonnegative Ricci curvature, Ric $\geq 0.$ We suppose that $M$ is conformally flat and simply connected or more generally that it admits a conformal immersion into the standard 3-sphere. Let $Σ$ be a compact connected and orientable surface immersed in $M$ which is a stable constant mean curvature (CMC) surface or an index one minimal surface. We prove that $Σ$ is homeomorphic either to a sphere or to a torus. Moreover, in case $Σ$ is homeomorphic to a torus, then it is embedded, minimal, conformal to a flat square torus and Ric$(N)=0$ where $N$ is a unit …
In this paper, we prove that nonnegative polyharmonic functions on the upper half space satisfying a conformally invariant nonlinear boundary condition have to be the "\emph{polynomials} plus \emph{bubbles}" form. The nonlinear problem is motivated by the recent studies of boundary GJMS operators and the $Q$-curvature in conformal geometry. The result implies that in the conformal class of the unit Euclidean ball there exist metrics with a single singular boundary point which have flat $Q$-curvature and constant boundary $Q$-curvature. Moreover, all of such metrics are classified. This phenome…
In this paper we show that for a generalized Berger metric $\hat{g}$ on $S^3$ close to the round metric, the conformally compact Einstein (CCE) manifold $(M, g)$ with $(S^3, [\hat{g}])$ as its conformal infinity is unique up to isometries. For the high-dimensional case, we show that if $\hat{g}$ is an $\text{SU}(k+1)$-invariant metric on $S^{2k+1}$ for $k\geq1$, the non-positively curved CCE metric on the $(2k+1)$-ball $B_1(0)$ with $(S^{2k+1}, [\hat{g}])$ as its conformal infinity is unique up to isometries. In particular, since in \cite{LiQingShi}, we proved that if the Yamabe constant of th…
We prove the existence of a $C^{1,1}$ conformally compact Einstein metric on the ball that has asymptotic sectional curvature decay to $-1$ plus terms of order $e^{-2r}$ where $r$ is the distance from any fixed compact set. This metric has no $C^2$ conformal compactification.
Let (M,g) be a compact n-dimensional Riemannian manifold with boundary. This article is concerned with the set of scalar-flat metrics on M which are in the conformal class of g and have the boundary as a constant mean curvature hypersurface. We construct examples of metrics on the unit ball, in dimensions n>=25, for which this set is noncompact. These manifolds have umbilic boundary, but they are not conformally equivalent to the unit ball.
This paper considers aspects of 4-manifold topology from the point of view of the null cone of a neutral metric, a point of view we call neutral causal topology. In particular, we construct and investigate neutral 4-manifolds with null boundaries that arise from canonical 3- and 4-dimensional settings. A null hypersurface is foliated by its normal and, in the neutral case, inherits a pair of totally null planes at each point. This paper focuses on these plane bundles in a number of classical settings The first construction is the conformal compactification of flat neutral 4-space into the 4-ba…
